Tourists and New Yorkers alike risk the traffic in a bid to get a shot of the phenomenon from the middle of the street. UK tourist Terrence Reid went so far as to say it was 'one of the beautiful things I have ever seen'
Tourists and New Yorkers alike risk the traffic in a bid to get a shot of the phenomenon from the middle of the street. UK tourist Terrence Reid went so far as to say it was 'one of the beautiful things I have ever seen'
Business as usual: under normal lighting conditions, its the Empire State Building that gets all the glory
With the iconic Empire State Building in view the phenomenon known as Manhattanhenge illuminated New York's 34th Street with spectacular results.
Similar to the prehistoric solstice sunsets at Stonehenge on Salisbury plains, Wiltshire, Manhattanhenge occurs twice a year.
For 15 minutes, the sun sets down the enormous grid system of the Big Apple's financial heart mesmerising passers by.
Bathing the famous 34th Street with glowing light, the sun downs itself in a bright orange globe into the Hudson River.
'It was beautiful, I wasn't aware that this happened in New York,' said Terrence Reid, 42, a tourist from the UK over for the weekend.
'It caught me unaware as I was crossing up Manhattan and it was one of the most beautiful things I have ever seen.'The term Manhattanhenge was created in 2002 by Neil deGrasse Tyson, an astrophysicist at the American Museum of Natural History.
Stonehenge: The Summer Solstice in Wiltshire attracts hundreds of people to Stonehenge each year. The number of naked Wiccans on 34th Street each year is significantly fewer
It refers to the streets of Manhattan that follow the Commissioners' Plan of 1811 which laid out a grid that is offset 28.9 degrees from true east-west.
Had the grid been set directly on the east-west line, the phenomenon would coincide with the spring and autumn equinoxes, just like Stonehenge.
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